But one man made it his mission to bring happiness to the South Side. One man decided to make things fun again by hitting monstrous dingers and embracing the weird fans hanging out in his section. He did this without pedigree. He did this without expectations. He came to town to do two things: crush baseballs and chew bubblegum and somehow the White Sox did not manage to order enough bubblegum.

That man was Daniel Palka.

The White Sox grabbed Palka off waivers from the Minnesota Twins last November. He had shown good power early in his minor league career but it tapered off the higher he rose through the farm system, a dangerous outcome for a 1B/DH who can only sort of play corner outfield. Given the logjam the Twins have in those areas, it wasn’t surprising at all that they cut him. It’s not like anyone would have actually predicted what happened next.

The White Sox called Palka up at the end of April. For the rest of the season, he swung as hard as he possibly could at almost every pitch he saw. If the pitcher was right-handed, this worked fairly well (.249/.298/.526). If they were a southpaw? Not so much (.200/.277/.293). His home runs had that Adam Dunn quality to them. That gunshot loud, turn your neck as soon as you hear it crack that left no doubt the ball was going to be a missile over the fence. His walk-off against Cleveland in August was a wonderful season highlight.

Palka wound up leading the Sox in home runs with 27 and finished with a .240/.294/.484 line that could garner him some down ballot Rookie of the Year votes. He engendered himself to the fans with his affability and embracing of the 108 lifestyle. Palka comes off as your well-meaning galoot of a buddy from undergrad who just so happened to stumble into being a pro ballplayer and is making the most of it before the clock strikes midnight. His season was definitely a success, though there are definitely concerns about how productive he can be going forward. He managed to adjust after both of his down months, but we’re still talking about striking out five times for every walk and there’s not terribly many places you can hide him defensively. It’s not unreasonable to believe he could be the better half of a DH platoon or an incredibly useful bench bat on a more robust roster, so there’s definitely a role for him on next year’s team at least.

Oh, and those 27 home runs? That’s three more than anyone hit for Minnesota last season.

*They absolutely should have.

• Matt Davidson: Working in Davidson’s favor, he has Top 100 Prospect pedigree, even if that is now several years in the rear view mirror, which jives with his pretty, powerful swing.  He also used 2018 to nearly triple his walk rate while shaving five points off his K%.  The result is a 110 OPS+ on the year to date, with an OBP up nearly 70 points (!!) from wildly below league average to slightly above.  The drawbacks here are a lack of athleticism and positional flexibility on the weak side of a platoon, as he can barely manage playing third base once a week and does not have the footspeed to cover for an outfield spot.  The hope is, given his improvement from 2017 to 2018, there’s more in there.  A Matt Davidson with this walk rate who hits .250-.260 instead of .220-.230 moves further from “decent bat for the position and bench contributor” to a solid regular.  The most intriguing X Factor here is the ability he has flashed as a pitcher in extremely limited samples.  Modern roster construction where teams carry 13 or 14 pitchers leaves almost no room on the bench for position players.  If Davidson can throw 10-20 innings a year, even in the lowest of leverage scenarios, it might separate him from his competition or allow the team to carry one less pitcher.  My gut says he sticks around for 2019, but we have not yet seen the acquisitions and departures of the winter.
• Daniel Palka:  Beloved by StatCast and certain enthusiastic portions of the fanbase, Palka’s power has always been loud and obvious.  For much of the year, however, it was the only thing he could do at a major league level.  Palka turns 27 in October and although the White Sox have given him run in the outfield, he’s arguably worse there than Davidson is at third.  To his credit, September has been his best month in terms of getting on base yet, as he has hit .246/.317/.667  (with eight more home runs, pushing him into the team lead with 27).  Palka is also left-handed, and one wishes teams would start contracting their bullpens to start platooning their opponents to death with bats like this on the bench.   Even so, like 2017 Davidson, it’s hard to carry a bat-only guy who can’t get his OBP above .300, as Palka sits at .289 on the year.  He has an option year left in 2019, so as long as there is 40-man space, they don’t have to make a final decision on him just yet.  Depending on who is healthy / here / gone next spring, I expect Palka to start the year in Charlotte or to fill in if someone is hurt in the hopes he makes a Davidsonian walk rate jump and becomes a more well-rounded weapon at the plate, because he is basically DH-only at this point.
• Nicky Delmonico:  Here’s where things get a little more grim.  Delmonico started the year with the inside track on the left field job after an excellent, albeit brief, audition in 2017.  However, the power he showed last year already looked like an outlier before it vanished this year in limited action bookending a huge chunk of the season lost to injury.  He’s 26 and has flashed major league production before, but there’s only so many of these guys you can keep around, and frankly, I’m not sure there’s enough power in here to carry the glove.  It doesn’t help that his signature strengths–zone control and contact–absolutely imploded, as his BB% dropped from 13.9 to 9.0 and his K% spiked from 18.7 to 25.2.  Like Palka, I anticipate the White Sox will exercise his option, but one has to imagine Palka has jumped over him in the organizational pecking order.
• Avisail Garcia:  Look, all I’m saying is he has 2,475 major league PAs and only 518 of them were good.  Those 518 came in 2017 and they were amazing, as he went to the All Star Game and nearly won a batting title.  My concern is how volatile the profile is, particularly taken in tandem with his truly impressive cascade of injuries.  And, when he’s going well, he’s shoring up his batting average and on-base skills with a remarkable number of infield hits.  The guy gets down the line really, really well for anyone, let alone someone his size–but he’s been managing a lot of lower body injuries this year, and one wonders if gains in eye and power will make up for the loss in speed as he ages further into his late 20s.  He’s under contract for one more year in 2019 and barring the signing of say, Bryce Harper, he’s almost certainly the starting right fielder next year.  I’m just so certain he winds up on the Cardinals and hits .300/.400/.500 for three years sooner rather than later.  Conversely, if the White Sox extend him, he will continue to randomly hit .350 for a couple months between long stretches of basically being a non-contributor.

In sum, injuries and mixed performances have not shed as much clarity as you might like on this pecking order, although I would give Davidson and Palka decent odds of being deployed creatively as significant complementary contributors down the line if they continue to shore up their weaknesses.  As has been the case for most of his career, how the organization chooses to handle Avisail depends on his performance and their own willingness to keep betting on his underlying talent, which in turn, will have big consequences for the fate of the team as a whole.

Lead Image Credit:  Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports

Wins and losses don’t mean much this year but trolling the Twins is always worthwhile

— Nicky Beeps (@Nick_BPSS) May 4, 2018

1. We often get so caught up in who’s doing what and when and where in regards to the White Sox build toward contention that we don’t stop to appreciate a truly enjoyable game. Thursday’s 6-5 win over the Twins to open a six-game home stand was far from perfect, but when it comes to the aesthetic pleasure of watching your team win a game against a division foe, it was among the most satisfying of the season thus far. (Yes, I know there’s only been nine to choose from).

Just how satisfying was it?

Never change, @CarlosSan29. pic.twitter.com/LxUE0ypB87

— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) May 4, 2018

2. Trayce Thompson’s walk-off homer off Addison Reed capped a comeback from down 5-1 after just four innings. The offensive heroes were Thompson and Daniel Palka, the latter of whom the White Sox claimed off waivers over the offseason from Minnesota. Palka’s had an interesting start to his White Sox and major league career. The 26-year-old has been a free-swinger through his 24 plate appearances since replacing the disabled Avisail Garcia two weeks ago, showing he can do damage when he runs into a mistake. His solid if unspectacular track record in the minors shows enough promise, even if he’s older than most rookies, and the White Sox lack of ready-made outfielders in the minors until they decide Eloy Jimenez’s time has come means you can add him to the list of players looking to prove they’re of major league caliber going forward, whether it’s with the White Sox or not.

We know Thompson’s story already, but the walk-off shot came at a good time for a player who hasn’t exactly made the most of breath of fresh life his career was given when the White Sox re-acquired him a few weeks ago. The home run was his fifth hit since joining the White Sox, three of which have left the ballpark. Thompson, like Palka and a few others, is being given an opportunity that might not be afforded him on a team constructed a little differently, and with Nicky Delmonico’s slow start and Adam Engel’s offensive ineptitude, now is as good of a time as any for him to prove he belongs. Thursday’s home run was just a single shot at the most opportune of times, but it was a step in the right direction.

3. That the White Sox won despite their most consistent starting pitcher thus far having a rough night is a testament to both the offense, and Reynaldo Lopez readily admitted he didn’t have his best stuff on Thursday.

“I think that today none of my pitches were working as they were supposed to work,” López said through team interpreter Billy Russo. “It was a constant battle for me. I have to battle, I have to grind through it and I’m finding ways to just get an out. It was with all my pitches. Today it wasn’t my best stuff and it was a battle.”

A day after Lucas Giolito flipped the script on his walk-heavy April with seven strikeouts, Lopez turned in his second consecutive start where he simply wasn’t missing bats. He induced just two swinging strikes in his 83 pitches and a fastball that has sat 95 for most of the season averaged just 93 mph on the day.

Lopez has been something of an early-season revelation considering the questions about his viability as a starter as well as the struggles of the staff as a whole. We’ll see yet whether Thursday’s struggles were a blip or part of a long-term concern.

4. Waiting for the inevitable tide to turn on Matt Davidson’s hot start doesn’t have quite the same feel as when he did the same (and it never came) with Avisail Garcia a year ago. Davidson’s prospect pedigree and lack of a long-term opportunity to date make it entirely possible the hitter he’s been for the first five weeks of the season is close to the new norm for him. No, he’s probably not going to OPS close to 1.000 long term, but he’s only three walks away from matching last year’s season-long total, and had another two-hit game Thursday including a double that drove home the tying run.

We’ve said it on a number of occasions, but while Davidson’s strikeout numbers are always going to be hefty, him bringing it down just a smidge (he’s at 30 percent on the season after 37.3 percent a year ago) while upping the walk rate (8.3 percent compared to 5.9) and remaining powerful (you really need to numbers on this one?) will make him a much more valuable player than we ever would’ve imagined even a few months ago.

5. Welington Castillo was a late scratch on Thursday with what Rick Renteria said after the game was because of a ball he took to the “personal region of the body” last week. Given that Castillo was disables twice a year ago because of testicular injuries, one obviously hopes bad luck hasn’t struck the White Sox catcher twice. While Castillo’s defense hasn’t graded out particularly well thus far this season (he’s second worst in the league, per FRAA), Omar Narvaez’s defense also leaves a lot to desire, as evidenced by the pair of passed balls that aided the Twins’ first two runs of the game. Regardless, Castillo presents quite a bit more offensive upside than Narvaez, and while Kevan Smith is a capable injury fill-in if Castillo is forced to the disabled list, losing him for any amount of time would be a considerable blow.

Lead Photo Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports